As part of a global discourse on the creation of a "peace culture", Mrs Suzanne Mubarak inaugurated the "Peace Matters" lecture series with Ambassador Swanee Hunt. Yasmine El-Rashidi reports When politicians gathered round the table for the July 2000 Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, the world waited anxiously for the results. Women comprised 55 per cent of those following the coverage -- reflective of their presence in the world. At the negotiating table, however, their voice was nearly absent; the talks, as is well known, failed. Former US President Bill Clinton had one thing to say about that dynamic: "If we'd had women at Camp David," he told the press. "We'd have an agreement." Around the tables in Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq and Afghanistan, the scenario has been no different -- the men make the war, and the men negotiate the peace. Swanee Hunt, former US ambassador to Austria, a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, and founder of the international foundation Women Waging Peace (WWP), told a Cairo audience last week that the war-makers-and-negotiators dynamic "makes absolutely no sense". "The makers of war should not design the peace. It's a bad habit," Hunt said, addressing the gathering at the American University in Cairo (AUC). "The women in Bosnia said, 'If we are going to be the victims, we want to be part of the decision- making.' There were 40 people in Bosnia trying to negotiate a peaceful solution. Not a single woman," she said, captivating the audience with her animated style. "And what do we see around us today? A world that is a mess! The encouraging news," she added, "is that we have a tremendous untapped resource -- half the world's population: The women." Hunt was the first of the lecturers invited by the recently founded Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement -- the first such movement in the Middle East. The series aims to bring speakers from around the world to share their experiences in that domain, Mrs Mubarak said. The inauguration of the series could not have been timelier, with the regional political upheaval in the wake of the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and the anniversary of the war on Iraq, fuelling public outcry and unrest. "Up to two days ago peace in the Middle East could have been within our reach. Today it has receded and prospects seem bleaker than ever," Mrs Mubarak said. "And it was only a few weeks ago that the dramatic events in Spain offered us all a sad reminder of the horrendous price innocent civilians pay for unresolved conflicts and the inability of man to transcend intolerance. Obviously, the insecurity that persists in regions like the Middle East, where no settlement has yet been accomplished, continue to have a heavy toll on human lives and to cause devastating consequences on the civilian populations. There is no need for me to recall what has just happened in Gaza -- we have all witnessed them on our screens." Amidst this highly charged global atmosphere, Mrs Mubarak and Ambassador Hunt asserted that it was once again time for the world to re-assess the means by which peace was being pursued. "We need to initiate a global shift in thinking," Hunt said. "We need to incorporate into the international security agenda the model of inclusive security. Women need to be fully integrated in the peace process. What qualifies men to come up with a peaceful solution? Should we not be drawing from one hundred per cent of the talent pool?" Hunt asked. "What do women bring to the negotiating table different to men?" Studies have shown that the distinctions in their tactics are striking. "First, they tend to be highly interested in preventing and stopping conflict," Hunt said. "Women spend a long time thinking before sending their children out to kill other people's children. Secondly, women are particularly adept at building bridges across cultural and national divides, and third, is that women have their fingers at the pulse of the community. To them it's not about maps and lines. And lastly, they're good at finding ways of innovatively dealing." At that point she paused, stared at the audience, then broke into a smile. "Which is what the men seem to fear," she said with a half chuckle. "That if women are brought to the negotiating table, they will negotiate a compromise -- something I have witnessed globally with UN officials." "As a nation," Hunt said of the United States, "we are not living up to our mandates in this area. Putting aside the unfortunate reality of the decision to attack Iraq, once we were there, we created a governing council comprised of 25 men, and just three women. So I went up to the Pentagon, met with people there and told them 'you've got to bring the women in'. The response," she says, "was 'we'll get to the women's issue after the place is secure. We've just got to accept," she said, "that some good guys make very bad foreign policy." Hunt said that much grassroots work needed to be done -- through the efforts of movements such as that of Egypt's Mrs Mubarak. "The quest for peace has been with us for a long time. This commitment is consistently reinforced every time peace is compromised," Mrs Mubarak said. "Peace is not just about the absence of war, and therefore should never be perceived purely within a military context. The political, socio- economic and cultural aspects should never be overlooked or underestimated. Peace is about freedom from want, freedom from fear, and freedom of future generations to inherit a healthy natural environment. These are the building blocks of human, and therefore national and global, security." The peace movement is a means of ensuring that this global movement emanates from the local level -- offering the impetus for peace-seeking groups and associations to join forces and develop a platform for dialogue, information sharing, and the building of alliances to promote consolidated action. "The creation of that culture of peace starts in the home," Mrs Mubarak said. "Nurturing respect for girls and boys alike ... parents rewarding non- violent behaviour, encouraging the values of tolerance, adversity, acceptance. It's easy to ingrain such values in children, and it's possible to teach the culture of peace at an early age -- provided you do it the right way: through books, music and art. We need to transform ourselves," she said. "And when we are able to transform who we are as human beings, only then can we transform the region." And for the policy-making men wary of women taking their places on the tables of power: "I just tell them not to worry," Hunt added, with her trademark humour. "We can always add more chairs to the table."
